Astoria Salmon Fisherman
Tries a Different Kind of Net

by Mike Stark
The Oregonian, June 4, 2000

Tooth nets may catch as many fish as gill nets
and allow for greater releases of live, unwanted fish

ASTORIA -- In a fast-flowing spot just off Rice Island,
fisherman Frank Tarabochia leans into the bow of his boat
and tosses what might be the future of local commercial
salmon fishing into the Columbia River.

The net stretches out behind the
boat and Tarabochia, like
generations of gill-netters before
him, settles into the boat's cabin
for a slug of coffee.

So far on this spring morning, the
fishing has been slim -- a
decent-sized chinook salmon and a dozen or so shad.

The yield isn't typical for Tarabochia, a seasoned
commercial fisherman who started picking Columbia River
salmon out of gill nets during the Eisenhower
administration.

Fishing on the river isn't what it used to be. A hundred
years ago, boats nudged gunnel to gunnel near the mouth
of the Columbia to capture thousands of plump salmon
headed for upriver spawning grounds.

Drastic declines later last century pushed 13 salmon and
steelhead stocks into protection under the federal
Endangered Species Act.

Industry at crossroads
Paltry runs and federal restrictions have left the struggling
local commercial salmon industry at a crossroads: adapt or
continue to whither away.

The experimental net trailing behind Tarabochia's boat
might help fishermen carve a new life into the
once-legendary salmon fishery.

Over the last month, Tarabochia and fellow gill-netter Alan
Takalo participated in an experiment with the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife to find out whether a new
kind of fishing gear -- one that snags salmon by the mouth
instead of the gills -- will allow fishermen to catch certain
fish while letting others go.

Tarabochia, initially skeptical of the new gear, now says he
thinks the new net might be the best shot at catching
hatchery salmon and others while complying with federal
restrictions to protect listed fish.

"I think this is what it's going to take if you want to fish with
all these endangered fish."

Catch 'em by the teeth
The idea behind tooth nets -- also called tangle nets -- is
simple: catch salmon by the teeth, or ridges around the
mouth. Unlike gill nets, which snag salmon around the gills
and bodies as they veer into the nets, tooth nets are meant
to capture salmon and keep them alive longer in the water.

Paul Hirose, a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife, is leading the state's effort to find out whether
the tooth nets will ensure that fishermen still catch as
many fish as conventional nets while allowing protected fish
to be tossed back with little or no harm.

There are still fish to be caught in the Columbia River,
Hirose said, but it has to be done carefully.

"We want to accommodate what's out there," he said.

The work is part of ongoing research into "selective fishing"
-- finding ways to fish for certain kinds of salmon while not
damaging protected populations.

Not so new in Canada
Although tooth net research in Oregon is fairly new, a
commercial fisherman in Canada has been experimenting
with it for years.

In 1996, Mark Petrunia, a gill-netter on Canada's Fraser
River, decided to try to catch salmon with a smaller gill net
usually used for oolichan. He hoped the three-inch mesh
would snag chum by their teeth or jaws and allow for live
release of other fish like sockeye, coho, steelhead and
sturgeon.

At the end of one experiment, Petrunia said he caught 592
coho salmon in the tooth net and was able to release 516
alive. Seventy were killed by seals and six died in the net.

Meanwhile, he caught more than 1,000 chum.

Hirose was hoping to see the same kind of success on the
Columbia River.

ODFW hired Tarabochia and Takalo to give the tooth net a
try and see how it compares to gill-net gear. Hanging like a
long curtain in the water, the net used in the experiment is
divided in two: one half with a conventional gill net with 6¾
inch diamond holes and the tooth tangle net, with 3½ inch
gaps.

Slow day on river
Tarabochia and Hirose are hoping that the tooth net
catches at least as many spring chinook as the gill net.
But on this day, only a couple chinook crash into the net.

More than anything, Tarabochia ends up picking shad out
of the tooth net. The non-native fish is the most abundant in
the Columbia, but the limited West Coast market hardly
makes it worth pulling them into the boat.

Nearly a dozen sturgeon also get caught up in the net. By
the end of the day, only two salmon are pulled in -- one in
the tooth net, the other in the gill net.

Although it's an uncharacteristically slow day, it adds a few
bits of information to the overall experiment.

Seven trips in May with the nets showed that the
experimental gear caught about the same number of
salmon as the gill nets.

In all, 19 live chinook and four dead ones are caught in the
tooth net. The conventional net brought in 20 live chinook
and three dead.

More information needed
There isn't enough information to draw solid conclusions
from the Columbia River experiments, but Hirose is happy
with what he has seen.

"It's been very successful in showing what we wanted to
show, basically the effectiveness of the gear," he said.

On the other side of the river, the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife is preparing similar tooth net
experiments in August, one in Suquamish and another in
Puyallup.

Tooth nets and selective fishing techniques, such as drifting
trap nets, will give commercial fishermen more fish to catch
and reduce the number of adult surplus fish at local
hatcheries, said Geraldine Vander Haegen, a state
biologist.

"This could be a good opportunity for commercial fishers to
selectively take hatchery fish and release wild fish."